When Sony unveiled its “One Sony” game plan back in March after posting billions in losses, the company highlighted digital photography as one of its three main pillars going forward. It was a bit of a surprise, then, when Sony announced today that it will soon be closing a large lens manufacturing factory in Japan as part of the restructuring efforts.
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Kodak has announced that it’ll be shedding even more jobs in an effort to cut costs as it transitions into being a company solely focused on commercial printing and corporate services. Two weeks after announcing the sale of its photographic film business, the company is stating that another 1,000 pink slips will be issued by the end of this year as part of a $330 million cost cutting plan. This is on top of the 2,700 layoff notices already handed out this year, and the new round of cuts will reduce the company’s headcount to 13,400, down from the 145,000 employees it had during its glory days.
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Roughly 50 staffers at CNN were given pink slips today, including nearly a dozen photojournalists. In an email to the staff, Senior VP Jack Womack cited the accessibility of cameras and the growth of citizen journalism as reasons for the terminations:
We also spent a great deal of time analyzing how we utilize and deploy photojournalists across all of our locations in the U.S. [...] We looked at the impact of user-generated content and social media, CNN iReporters and of course our affiliate contributions in breaking news. Consumer and pro-sumer technologies are simpler and more accessible. Small cameras are now high broadcast quality. More of this technology is in the hands of more people. After completing this analysis, CNN determined that some photojournalists will be departing the company.
CNN’s citizen journalism initiative, iReport, has proved extremely valuable as a source of imagery during things like disasters and protests. However, it has also received criticism for not paying for submitted photos — even those that are subsequently broadcast worldwide.
(via The Hollywood Reporter via FilmmakerIQ)
